Five Senators and Eight House Members to Challenge ElectionBy David Swanson, ILCA

Four Senators Join Boxer, Seven House Members Join Conyers

Senator Barbara Boxer was the first, and Kim Gandy of the National Organization of Women announced it at a rally in Lafayette Square Park Thursday morning, across from the White House. Senator Boxer would be joining Congressman John Conyers and other House Members in challenging the electoral votes from Ohio in a joint session of Congress called to certify the election.

Nearl two hours later, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., took the stage -- the final speaker before the crowd of about 300 activists in orange clothes (as worn in the Ukraine) headed down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. Jackson told the crowd - to shouts and cheers, and in some cases tears - that Boxer would be joined by Senators Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and Barak Obama. From the House, Jackson said, Congressman John Conyers would challenge the Ohio vote, with the support of Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Maxine Waters (who also spoke at the morning rally), Robert Scott, Mel Watt, and Jerrold Nadler.

Senator John Kerry, Jackson said, was in Baghdad. "And we need him here in Washington today. Those who cannot lead today cannot lead in 2006 or 2008. This is the moment of truth!" Jackson spoke, as many of the speakers did, of building a coalition of blacks and progressives. The cheers cannot have been missed inside the walls of the White House.

Jackson left by car to go lobby senators. Phone both of yours right now -- of either party -- right now!! (202) 224-3121 or 1-800-839-5276.

i saw a press conference on cspan2 and it seems like they were more in it for actual election reform, rather than attempting to reverse the result and have john kerry rocking the presidency or anything.

what puzzles me is why election reform doesn't get more proponents. fairer, easier voting, you would think, ought to be a priority for everyone (well, in super democracy utopia land, at least).

well, justin, if that's the case then i am behind the cause. i totally agree with election reform, i just don't think that john kerry should be president right now. as far as i'm concerned, popular vote should decide the election's result. the electoral college is outmoded. however, i don't think it'll ever go away--too many people benefit from the fucked up way it works.

yeah, i'm not down with hilary either, and the main reason is because it annoys me to hear people talking about how she could win the presidency. no she couldn't, don't these people realize how many people out there who didn't like clinton STILL bash hilary every time his name comes up? she'd lose by a landslide.

Conservatives Push for Psychiatric Diagnosis of 'Loony Leftists'Still thinking about election fraud in Ohio? Worried that voting machines in Florida may have been hacked? If some Republicans get their way, there may soon be an official diagnosis of what really ails you: political paranoia disorder.

"Political Paranoia" to be included in next edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

By Hermione Slatkin, Medical Correspondent

NEW YORK, NY,AeiWhen Zacharia Goodman recently sought out the help of a therapist, it was no mystery as to what was ailing him. The 27-year-old copy editor was so consumed by his belief that President George W. Bush stole the recent election that he was having trouble sleeping, completing rudimentary tasks at work, and carrying on conversations about topics not related to politics.

The therapist he consulted wrote Goodman a prescription for the social anxiety drug Paxil and encouraged him to spend less time reading left-wing blogs and listening to Air America.

This particular story has a happy ending; Goodman admits that he's already far less irritating to be around than he was just a few weeks ago. But countless paranoids just like him may be going untreated, say mental health professionals. The reason: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM presently excludes political paranoia from its 933 pages of symptoms, diagnoses and treatment recommendations.

And with thousands of individuals across the country seeking therapy in the wake of President Bush's electoral victory, some mental health professionals fear that a diagnostic crisis may be in the offing.

Democrat or just demented?Now a group of Republican lawmakers is hoping that they can do something about the problem. When the 109th Congress convenes in Washington in January, Senator Bill Frist, the first practicing physician elected to the Senate since 1928, plans to file a bill that would define "political paranoia" as a mental disorder, paving the way for individuals who suffer from paranoid delusions regarding voter fraud, political persecution and FBI surveillance to receive Medicare reimbursement for any psychiatric treatment they receive.

Rick Smith, a spokesman for Senator Frist, says that the measure has a good chance of passing,Aeisomething that can only help a portion of the population that is suffering significant distress.

"If you're still convinced that President Bush won the election because Republicans figured out a way to hack into electronic voting machines, you've obviously got a problem," says Smith. "If we can figure out a way to ease your suffering by getting you into therapy and onto medication, that's something that we hope the entire 109th Congress will support."

A meeting of the mindsOf course, while Congress can pass laws defining mental disorders, the ultimate decision regarding the inclusion of political paranoia disorder in the next version of the DSM isn't up to legislators but to psychiatrists. The entire assembly of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) must approve the addition of the disorder when that body convenes in Atlanta in May.

This won't be the first time that the APA has bowed to political pressure to add or delete common mental disorders. In 1973, the APA removed homosexuality from the massive psychiatric desk reference. The 1987 publication of DSM-III-R deleted ego-dystonic homosexuality as well.

As for the likelihood that therapists will soon be able to diagnose "political paranoia" in the patients who come to see them, Zacharia Goodman says that that moment can't come quickly enough.

"I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, my girlfriend left me, and I still didn't know what was wrong with me," says Goodman, who now attends a support group for political paranoids in addition to taking a daily dose of Paxil. "Now I can read the news and stay calm. I'm even planning to watch the inauguration on TV."

Yeah, he'll lose if he runs in 2008, but if he runs in say, 2016, he's got a really good chance. Once he has some experience under his belt, he'll be unstopable. Just because he's black doesn't mean that the republicans will be able to vote for him any less. Like the daily show said, he's the single glowing ray of hope for the democratic party.

This won't be the first time that the APA has bowed to political pressure to add or delete common mental disorders. In 1973, the APA removed homosexuality from the massive psychiatric desk reference. The 1987 publication of DSM-III-R deleted ego-dystonic homosexuality as well.

So homosexuality is a common mental disorder? Can't say I find that particularly funny, unless this is supposed to be some kind of meta-satire of people who believe you'd have to be crazy to think American politics aren't entirely clean and above-board.

Once people start worrying too much about Bigfoot/Aliens/"political correctness" they start seeing it/them/it everywhere. Homosexuality was removed from the DSM for the same reason it's now legal to have oral in most states: because it became glaringly obvious that there was nothing at all wrong with it to everybody except morons. That this realization happens to coincide with some of the concerns of the so-called "politically correct" is meaningless.

The DSM is under constant revision and rightly so; only the hopelessly rigid would imagine that we're done learning about the mind.

The entire political correctness debate is nothing but a muddying of the waters. Feminism and personal politics are of enormous importance, and regularily gets straw-manned into political correctness nonsense. And I'm not even going to start about the campaign for greater state invasiveness in the name of political correctness (like France banning anti-gay remarks in public and private). Ignore all of it, and think of new ways to get other people's noses out of your damn business